Mariah Currey is a native of the damp and gloomy Pacific Northwest. Growing up against the backdrop of grey skies and green forests instilled a love of the whimsical and fantastic in her that would later permeate her artistic aesthetic. Mariah is a graduate of Western Washington University where she succeeded in completing not only a Bachelors in Design, but also a double major in French. Having always been entranced by visual story telling, Mariah also writes and draws the webcomic, Rainy Day Dreams.

The idea for The Forest was based on a challenge by the non-profit organization, We Are What We Do, to design an application that facilitates and encourages positive behaviors in people's daily lives to promote positive mental health. With mental health issues such as anxiety and depression on the rise, particularly in younger generations, the goal of the app was to encourage preventative behaviors such as spending time with loved ones, doing physical activities, learning new things, and appreciating the beauty of the world around. The goal of the Forest was to create a game that would track and reward the user for logging these possitive behivors. Playing as a "Forester," the user's goal would be to plant and grow trees to create their own forests. Logging activities would give the user nutrients to level up and grow their trees. By tagging friends in Logs, multiple users could also grow shared forests together.

Pictured above is an example of a Forester profile page. Below are examples of trees the user could potentially grow as well as a screen shot of the private and shared forest menu.

Pictured above are, from left to right, the sketches for logo design, wireframes for the app followed by paper prototypes, and finally, storyboards for the following video showing some of the intended interactions and functions of the app.